Five years ago right around this time, on another Monday evening, I was getting home from our monthly a capella group practice. I walked into what I thought was a normal evening at home. Suddenly from the bathroom, I heard my dad yelling, “Sit up! What’s going on? Hey! Sit up!”
I looked into the room where my brother was and said “let’s go. Something is way off.” Mom had apparently slumped forward as she was TCB. My dad was in there with her because she’d become such a fall risk — and with a glass-paned corner shower, he was very afraid of her falling into it and cutting herself badly. After she slumped forward, dad sat her up against the tank but she kept sliding down. The three of us managed to get her into a seated position but it didn’t last long.
We decided to try to get her up and out to the car for a trip to the ER. Herding jello would have been easier. Mom had zero ability to stand on her on. We got her on her feet and to her rollator. She remained hunched over. When my dad pushed on her hips to get her standing straight, she started going straight down to the floor. I had Dad and Richard sit her back in the floor. I looked at Dad and said, “I’m calling EMS. There is no way the three of us can get her out of this room and into a car. They’ll have to take her on a gurney.” I knew dad would be worried about the cost (as would mom) but I looked at them and said “as long as my tax dollars are paying for your Medicare....”
The EMT’s were there soon and at least got her out of the floor. They got her seated onto the chair part of the rollator — long enough to get her onto a gurney. About 10:20 the ambulance drove away.
She didn’t ever return. They sent her from the small community hospital she adored to the larger hospital in their chain for additional cardiac care. I called twice a day, always on the way to work in traffic, to speak with the nurse to see how she was. On Wednesday night I went to visit and she’d gone way downhill from when my brother saw her that afternoon on his lunch break. I’ll never know for sure but my dad and I think she had some sort of stroke or something else. She was pretty much non-responsive most of the time after that.
By Saturday, her kidneys were failing. The doctor moved her to cardiac ICU for additional monitoring but also told us to start thinking about our decisions. We did a lot of crying, a lot of praying, a lot of pondering.
I called my boss to tell her and let her know I wouldn’t be in — she said to take all the time I needed. She cried on the phone with me. Within five minutes, I had texts from all my coworkers offering their kindnesses.
Mom had some lucid moments. She spoke with some of my dad’s relatives that next week. But she slept more often than not — 23 out of 24 hours. I logged into work that next Wednesday, when Dad rang me: the doctor wanted to meet with us. I rushed down there as soon as I dressed. Mom greeted me with a big “Hey Annette!” And it was all I could do to hold it together. Those were her last lucid words to me. The doctor met us: the tests were not improving and her kidneys were kaput. Dialysis wasn’t an option — if we couldn’t get her into the car in the shape she was in that week before, how were we going to ever manage getting her to a dialysis center? And for what? Was her life going to ever be better? Our other option was hospice, and in her shape, at the local Hospice House. With very heavy hearts, we agreed to have her assessed.
I was there when the nurse checked her out and said, “yep, she’s a prime candidate for hospice care.” It weighed so heavy on me. Dad and Richard had gone home to rest. My cousin showed up with dinner for me, and she was the first person I told of our decision.
I remember her going to Hospice House the next day. It turned SO cold and I came home to check on Maddox (and have him say his goodbyes to his Nanny. I walked out onto the carport and flurries fell. It was freaky. I took him into the room and mom — all drugged up in morphine patches and Ativan — reached for him to pet him. He sniffed her for a while, went down to the foot of her bed, and whimpered. He knew.
i went back on Friday afternoon, taking shifts so Dad and Richard could rest. I sat with her, I sang to her, I talked to her, I sat in silence and discomfort. At 5:00 she started to rouse and I felt all my anxiety surface. Was I watching the end? Would I have time to call Dad and Richard?
She said one last word: “aaaaahhhhhhhmmmmm.” Her arm. She had dislocated her shoulder back on the 22nd somehow. They found it on an MRI later in the week. They couldn’t operate on her, so they had no alternative except to manually pop it back into place and constrain her on that side. And in all she’d been through in 10 days, her arm still bothered her most.
I found the nurse and she brought morphine. She had to massage it down mom’s throat; she could no longer swallow on her own. And she had an accident in the meantime. A couple of nurses came in to fix her up. They were so patient and caring even in the mess and muck.
About 20 minutes later, one of my mother’s cousins stopped by for a last visit. I was so drained I looked at her and said, “I’m going home. She’s just been changed, they just gave her morphine so she won’t be too responsive. I’m exhausted. Bye.” I couldn’t even muster the words to be a gracious hostess. So to speak....
The call came the next morning, 6:04 am. When they asked to speak to my dad, and I offered to relay a message and they said they’d hold, I knew.
She had passed around 5:55 am. It happened more quickly than the nurses realized, enough that they knew it would be useless to call us in.... we wouldn’t make it in time. Mom was not in a family-sized room. They only had one bed left when mom was admitted, and we were lucky to get it. So they held her hands as she made her last flight.... I don’t have any guilt however. Our first moments there, one of the nurses told us, “don’t leave this room without saying anything you think you need to say. You may not get another chance.” I had said everything I needed to that day before.
And in five years, I still miss my mom. I miss her, but I do not wish her back. She is fully healed. She isn’t beset by the aches and of old age, of heart disease, of fibromyalgia, of unacknowledged anxiety disorder (because oh noooo, no one in HER family was crazy, noooo sir!). It is different with my brother: he was taken too young and I would wish him back. Not that he would come back.... but you know.
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